Charles Apple

Here’s wishing the happiest of VizEds birthdays to Mark Friesen of The Oregonian in Portland. Mark turns 42 today.

While many of you are familiar with his award-winning work for The Oregonian, others know Mark via the fabulous job he’s done over the past four years, covering the visual journalism beat with his NewsDesigner blog. NewsDesigner averages 30,000 visits and 60,000 page views a month, Mark says.

Matt Mansfield of the Mercury News is wondering what the fabulous NewsDesigner will blog about next. Meanwhile, Mark wonders why Mansfield is walking around with his teeth in a glass.

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It’s been a big year for Mark.

In January, Mark and his wife welcomed a son, Noah, into the world.

Then, in March, Mark made another huge change by becoming the Oregonian’s online editor. This follows 12 years as the paper’s A1 desiger and eight months as the business designer.

Mr. Friesen agreed to celebrate his birthday by answering a few questions for us…

Q. This is your first child, right?

A. Actually, it’s not. I’ve got a 9-year-old daughter from Marriage No. 1. And she could not possibly be more over-the-moon thrilled to be a big sister.

Q. How’s fatherhood? Are you enjoying it? Are you sleeping?

A. It’s great. He’s a really happy kid. Sleeps through the night like a champ (and even sleeps in a bit on weekends!). The main reason I’m not getting as much sleep is because after working nights for most of the past 20 years, I suddenly have to get up at 5 a.m. Eccchhhh.

Q. How is the new job? Are you enjoying the non-print side of things?

A. It’s a lot of fun. It’s sort of a brave new world with a sometimes-refreshing lack of rules or entrenched standards. I’m finding it pretty exhilarating to be part of creating what comes next for newspapers.

Mark succumbs to an attack of the giggles in Orlando. Photo by Kenny Marlatt.
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Q. We can’t help but notice that you haven’t posted quite as often lately in your blog. Is this a temporary thing? Or are all your new duties both at home at at the paper, keeping you tied up?

A. Yeah, I think it’s temporary. Still trying to get my bearings with all this new stuff going on. But I’m already trying to pick things up a bit.

Q. Will you be in Boston this fall?

A. I will. They’ve got a great program lined up. I’m extremely happy that they’ve got a robust new media track with people like Adrian Holovaty, Khoi Vinh, Brian Storm, etc. I think it’s crucial for SND to get to the forefront of these emerging issues.

Mark is a 1987 graduate of the University of Missouri, where he worked on the student paper, The Maneater. Among the artifacts Mark has posted online is this 1985 Maneaster staff photo. Click on the thumbnail for a larger view:

See the third guy from the left wearing the dark hat and the white tie? No, that’s not Billy Joel. That’s Mark.

A few examples of Mark’s print work:

Find Mark’s NewsPageDesign portfolio here.

Find Mark’s NewsDesigner blog here.

Mark shares a birthday with Bill Bootz of The Quad City Times, Fred Durst, the lead singer of Limp Bizkit; Robert Plant, the lead singer of Led Zeppelin; TV journalists Connie Chung and Al Roker; and author Jacqueline Susann, most famous for writing Valley of the Dolls.

In addition, today is National Radio Day. Seriously.

Best wishes for a happy birthday, Mark!

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This entry was posted on Monday, August 20th, 2007 at 5:09 am and is filed under Workshops, Web news design, Job changes, News design, Newspapers, Happy birthday, Visual Editors. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.